In the John Merchant and John B. McCullough patent application Ser. No. 1,049, filed Jan. 5, 1979, and assigned to the assignee of the present invention, an electronic zoom system is described which can be used by a viewer so as to zoom on subjects within the field of view of the cameras and increase the magnification of the image being viewed without effective loss of resolution so as to see the magnified image in greater detail than was possible in prior art electronic zoom systems.
Because of the relatively high cost of vidicon cameras and particularly in the field of infrared radiation where infrared cameras are quite expensive, it is desirable to provide a zoom system which would minimize the number of cameras used.